


Second Chances

by osprey_archer



Series: Reciprocity [26]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Kiss, Hand Jobs, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:47:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4317519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fucking finally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [littlerhymes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes) for betaing this!

Steve hadn’t been at all sure he should leave New York, not when he had so much on his plate: an op to clear out SHIELD’s main North American prison (the Corncrib; how did they get these names?), plans for Tony Stark’s Home for Brainwashed Agents, strategy meetings about the Scapegoat hearings set to begin once Congress returned from its Christmas recess. But the prison break was complete, and Pepper and Tony and Natasha had the planning and the strategy well under control, so when Bucky rolled up his undercover op in Florida and asked Steve to come visit, Steve went. 

He wanted desperately to see Bucky, anyway. They had talked nearly every night, but Steve couldn’t shake the fear that the whole op would go pear-shaped and Bucky would end up on a Hydra operating table again. After all, he’d gone undercover to act as bait: traumatized amputee Afghanistan vet with no close friends or family, ripe for the plucking for Hydra supersoldier experiments.

But the op was over and Bucky was all right, tan and smiling when he picked Steve up at the airport, although Steve had done a double take at the sight of him standing there with an empty left sleeve. He hugged Bucky maybe a little too hard. “Aw,” said Bucky, a little shy at the public display of affection. “You know I wasn’t in any danger. Tony installed one of those summoning things in Katyushka, like you’ve got in your shield; I could’ve called her if things got sticky.” 

“Sure,” said Steve, and breathed in the sunlight smell of Bucky’s hair. “No danger at all.”

It wasn’t until after dinner that Steve relaxed. Bucky turned onto the two-lane coastal road. He was driving slow, and the smell of the sea blew through the car windows; Steve’s lips still tasted sweet from the orange juice they’d bought at a roadside stand, and the sun was warm through his t-shirt, and he melted into his seat. For the first time since finding Rumlow, he felt at peace. 

Rumlow. He did feel a little bad about leaving Rumlow all alone. But it was only for a few days, and he wouldn’t be able to visit Rumlow every day once they moved Rumlow to Tony Stark’s Home for Brainwashed Agents, anyway. And Natasha had promised to visit him while Steve was in Florida. “I don’t think he’s a good candidate for rehabilitation,” she warned him, and suddenly smiled. “But then, I bet a lot of people told Fury the same thing about me.”

Steve drowsed a little in the slanting evening sunshine, and woke with a start when the car rolled to a halt beside a cottage. “You like it?” Bucky asked, checking Steve’s face, as excited as if the cottage were his own. 

“Yes,” said Steve. He fumbled with the seatbelt, his fingers a little sleep-clumsy, as he took in the picture: a white cottage buried in shade trees dripping Spanish moss, a tangle of flowers growing up around the foundations. He couldn’t see the sea, but the beach grass on the sandy rise behind the house waved in the salty breeze. “When Tony said he had a cottage in Florida, I figured it would be some modernist monstrosity,” Steve admitted. 

Bucky laughed. He took the two steps up to the porch in a bound. Steve found himself staring at the muscles in Bucky’s bare calves. Bucky’s clothes – knee-length cargo shorts, a t-shirt – couldn’t be called revealing by any normal measure, but they showed a lot more skin than his usual trousers and sweatshirt ensemble. The t-shirt stuck to the sweat in the small of his back, sweet Jesus. 

“Come on!” Bucky called. He turned to lean over the porch rail, grinning, getting impatient; and when Steve didn’t follow him instantly, he hopped back down the steps to drag Steve up after him, his calloused palm warm on Steve’s arm. 

The inside of the cabin seemed as un-Tony-like as the outside. Squares of stained glass bordered the casement windows; blue Moorish tiles served as baseboards on the white walls. Steve toed out of his sandals. The hardwood floor was cool beneath his feet. 

Bucky dropped Steve’s bag next to a lumpy red futon and crossed the room to open the window. The smell of the sea blew in. “Did Tony buy this place as a present for Pepper?” Steve asked. 

“Nah. Some girlfriend from college,” Bucky said. He flipped a switch. Up near the ceiling, a string of white Christmas lights flickered to life. A ceiling fan began to turn lazily, the revolving blades casting odd shadows on the ceiling. “You want some more orange juice?” 

“Sure.”

Bucky pushed open the window in the kitchen, too, before opening up the cupboards to fetch glasses. He’d gotten pretty good at doing things with just one arm. Steve settled himself on one of the wrought-iron barstools and forced himself not to crane his neck to see what kind of food Bucky had. He could tell Bucky had lost some weight over the last two weeks; but supersoldiers dropped weight so easily, and anyway, the thinner look fit with the character Bucky had been playing. 

Bucky set a glass of orange juice on the kitchen island by Steve, and Steve saw that the countertop was a swirling mosaic of shells and sea glass. He traced the ridges on one shell. “She’s some kind of artist now,” Bucky said. “The girlfriend he bought the place for. She did the tiles and the stained glass too.” 

“How does Tony _find_ these women?” Steve asked, a little plaintive.

Bucky sipped his orange juice. “I would date Tony Stark for a beach house,” he mused. “If I didn’t have to date him for too long. Maybe a month or two.”

“Thanks for that mental image, Bucky.” 

“Six months, tops. If I got to keep the cottage afterward,” Bucky said. 

Steve felt a little uncomfortable. “Planning your next undercover op, huh?” he teased. 

Bucky gave an exaggerated shudder. “One was enough.” 

Steve was relieved. It had been an important mission, helping the army find out how Hydra was recruiting veterans for supersoldier experiments; but he was glad Bucky didn’t intend to plunge into the undercover life. “You wrapped this one up pretty quick.” 

“Hydra got cocky. They’re not used to having anyone but SHIELD looking for them.”

The breeze ruffled the white curtains in the windows. “We could have gotten so much more done if we’d been working with other people all this time,” Steve said. “We shouldn’t have given up on finding allies.” He screwed up his face. “I shouldn’t have given up. I’m not sure Coulson was ever looking.”

Rain began to fall, a soft patter on the leaves outside. Steve rubbed a fingertip on the blunt corner of a piece of sea glass not quite flush with the rest of the mosaic. 

“I kept thinking about those shambling zombie supersoldiers guarding the bases,” Bucky said, and Steve glanced up at him. The dim glow of the Christmas lights softened his face, and Steve was so struck that he couldn’t look away. “When the Hydra recruiter went off on his stupid spiel about how he could give me a new arm, a better arm, a better life, etc., etc. Of course all those poor stupid bastards said yes. He never mentioned the process might turn their brains into oatmeal.” He lifted his head. “Do you think that’s reversible?” 

Steve realized suddenly that it wasn’t the dim light that softened his face. His expression was open, gentle: not an expression Steve was used to seeing on his face. Even in Brooklyn, Bucky usually hid his gentleness behind a barrage of humor. 

“Simmons will be looking into it,” Steve said. “Tony’s setting up a lab for her at the Home for Brainwashed Agents. Or close by, anyway. We figured it might stress a lot of the patients out having it onsite.” 

Bucky half-grinned. “Is Pepper really letting him call it that?” 

“The official name is Rosemont or something like that,” Steve said. “But Tony calls it the Tony Stark Home incessantly, so that’s pretty much stuck, even though it’s misleading. It’s not supposed to be a permanent home, at least not for most of them. The idea is to deprogram them and send them back to their old lives if we can.” Steve fell silent. Joyce Takei was not a promising test case. 

Bucky’s mind must have followed the same lines, because he said, “How’s Joyce?”

“Simmons wants her to work in the lab. Joyce wants to break the Faustus programming in her brain before she’ll even think about it. But given that it survived a mind-wipe…” He rubbed his face. “It’s so unfair,” Steve said, and suddenly he felt exhausted. “Jesus, I’m so tired of this. We’ve been processing all those poor guys from the Corncrib, and there aren’t as many brainwashing victims as I thought maybe there would be, but Jesus, Buck, I just kept thinking, if I weren’t around – if you’d been on your own – Coulson would’ve just – ” 

“Hey,” said Bucky. He touched Steve’s shoulder lightly. “How about we just don’t talk about it while you’re here, huh? It’s not going to be much of a vacation if you keep torturing yourself about the same old shit.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Maybe I’ll just sack out. I guess I’ll be taking the couch?”

Bucky hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “If you want.”

The lumpy-looking futon was actually pretty comfortable. Steve pushed his bag onto the floor and got out his tablet. He meant to read a little, but he rested his head on one of the embroidered pillows and listened to Bucky’s bare feet on the kitchen floor. The soft soothing rain continued to fall. Occasionally a few cool drops flickered through the open window onto Steve’s face. 

He was drifting a little when Bucky woke him up by snagging one of the pillows off the couch. Bucky lay down on the floor, and after a little while, Steve rolled over to look at him.

Bucky’s t-shirt rose up, exposing a thin pale line of stomach; Steve could see it hollowing out as he breathed. Bucky’s hand rested on his stomach, the tip of his little finger close to that bare skin, and Steve couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe. “You comfy?” Steve asked, and was amazed he sounded so normal. 

Bucky had been watching the ceiling fan, but he turned his head a couple millimeters to look at Steve. “Yep. It’s cooler down here.”

The seconds stretched. Bucky didn’t look away, and Steve couldn’t look away either. The air was warm and damp, the sound of the rain still quiet outside, and he wanted so badly to touch Bucky: the bare skin at his waist, the firm muscle under his shirt. 

He had meant to wait till things calmed down. But it occurred to him, with sudden clarity, that in that case he’d probably be waiting till they were eighty; and Bucky was blinking up at him, sleepy, getting puzzled, his hair messed up and his eyelids heavy, and Steve gave in and let one hand hang over the edge of the couch, brushed his knuckles against Bucky’s side. “Buck,” Steve said, and he let his hand slide along Bucky’s ribs, till one knuckle touched his bare skin, and Steve tried to swallow and couldn’t quite. “You remember the thing I said about – sometime?” 

Bucky pushed himself to sit, moving forward, then reining himself in sharply. “Yeah?”

“How do you feel about now?” 

Bucky caught Steve’s hanging hand in one hand and tugged. Steve slid off the couch, kneeling on the floor, and Bucky was sitting up too, so they were facing each other, both quite still. 

Suddenly the yard of space between them seemed cavernous, unbridgeable. Steve wasn’t sure where to start and Bucky was waiting, letting him take the lead. 

“Can I kiss you?” Steve blurted. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He bit his lip. His goofy smile widened till it looked almost too big for his face. Steve clasped his hands behind his back, twisting his fingers together so he wouldn’t accidentally touch Bucky’s face (and thought of that guy giving Bucky a blowjob in the alleyway in Poland, hands behind his back too, and Steve was blushing hard), and leaned in.

And Bucky, inevitably, flinched so hard that he nearly fell over. 

“Shit!” exploded Bucky. He smacked his fist against his thigh. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“We can just start somewhere else – ” Steve began. 

“ _No_ ,” said Bucky. He clenched his jaw tighter. “Fuck that. I’ll hold still this time.” 

“No, Bucky, let’s just – ”

“I _can_ ,” Bucky insisted. 

“I know you can hold still! But I don’t want you holding still for me as if this were a trip to the dentist or something. It’s not going to be good if we’re not both enjoying it.” 

A brief silence followed. Bucky was intensely still, the kind of stillness that was more than a mere lack of motion. 

“I’ve got an idea,” Bucky said, and his hand moved to Steve’s face so suddenly that Steve almost flinched. But Bucky’s touch was gentle, his fingers splayed across Steve’s jaw, thumb on Steve’s cheek. “You hold still,” Bucky said, and he leaned in and kissed Steve.

It was hesitant at first, closed lips against closed lips, a forties-style movie kiss. Bucky’s hand moved, back to Steve’s ear, down to his neck, finally cradling the back of his head. _Trying to get more control_ , Steve thought, and Bucky dug his thumb into the nape of Steve’s neck, tilting Steve’s head back; and Bucky rose up on his knees so he could keep kissing him. He touched his tongue to Steve’s lips, and then Bucky was really kissing him, open-mouthed, all shyness gone, and Steve was surprised, so overwhelmed that he fell back against the couch. 

Bucky gasped, surprised maybe; Steve had no time to analyze it, because Bucky crowded after him. Steve, still off-balance, grabbed onto him, clinging to him, his arms around Bucky’s waist, and Bucky pressed right up against him, chest to chest. His teeth clacked against Steve’s, and Steve balled up his hands in the back of Bucky’s shirt, twisting it up so his hands brushed against the bare skin of Bucky’s back, _yes_. He righted himself, not exactly upright but close enough that he no longer felt like he might fall over, and slid his hands right up along Bucky’s spine, under his shirt. Jesus, so beautiful. 

He should have expected it, but it startled him when his right hand hit the metal socket. Bucky gasped again. He tucked his head down, the tip of his nose against Steve’s jaw, and Steve trailed his lips along Bucky’s skin to kiss him high on his cheek. Bucky’s eyelashes fluttered, soft against Steve’s face, and he pressed his hot face against Steve’s neck. Suddenly he shivered and shook his head roughly, like a dog shaking off water, and pulled away. The air that had seemed so warm earlier now seemed chilly. 

“Sorry,” Steve said. He had lowered his hands already, and he lowered them more, smoothing Bucky’s shirt over his waist, stroking in gentle apology. Bucky’s hand was clenched on Steve’s shirt, up around the collar. “Maybe we should slow – ” 

Bucky’s hand moved decisively lower, landing squarely on Steve’s cock. Even with two layers of cloth between them, Steve squeaked. He blushed – because he had made that noise, and because Bucky was looking him over now, a dissecting look. His gaze fastened on Steve’s erection, and even though Steve was still fully dressed he felt exposed, and covered it with his hand, like Adam in a Renaissance painting. 

“You know that’ll work better if you unzip?” Bucky drawled. 

“Gosh, really?” Steve said, desperately uncomfortable, still dizzy from desire and heat. He tried to laugh it off, warm things back up: “You gonna show me how?” 

Bucky pushed Steve’s hand aside, fumbled at the button. Steve reached for him, because he wanted to be touching Bucky, wanted him close, and he seemed oddly far away. 

Bucky knocked Steve’s hand away from him. “Don’t,” said Bucky. The sharpness dashed the hot fizzing in Steve’s blood and his head; he felt cold, and suddenly acutely aware that Bucky wasn’t touching him anywhere now, was kneeling beside him with a good few inches of space between their bodies except for Bucky’s hand at the fly of Steve’s cargo shorts. 

“Wait. Wait,” Steve blurted, and he grabbed Bucky’s hand. Bucky shook him off roughly, intent on Steve’s zipper, and Steve grabbed his hand again. “Bucky. What are you doing, Buck?”

“Getting you off.”

“But why are you doing it from way over there?”

Bucky jerked his hand away from Steve, his gaze snapping up to Steve’s face. “That’s how you did it.”

“Because you’d push me away if I got too touchy-feely.” 

Bucky’s lips parted. He seemed about to say something, but he froze, mouth half-open. 

“Bucky,” Steve said, concerned. He scooted close. He could hear Bucky’s breathing, a little too fast and too shallow. He reached for Bucky, and Bucky exploded to his feet, retreating around the sofa till he had it between them. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said. He sounded half-suffocated. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I was awful to you.” 

“It’s okay,” Steve said.

Bucky bristled. “It’s _not okay_ , Steve, Jesus. I was fucking awful to you for months, it’s not _okay_.”

“Well, fine, Bucky, it sucked,” Steve said. “But the past is past, and you’re not going to make it up to me by – you don’t need to hurt yourself to make it up to me. Just be good to me from now on. To both of us. It’s not going to be any fun for either of us if we’re not both having fun.”

“I know that! You already fucking told me that!” 

“Then why were you – ” Steve paused. “Okay,” he said. “Back up a minute. Things were going – I thought things were going okay, you were kissing me, that was great, and then something went wrong. What went wrong?”

“You told me to stop,” Bucky said sullenly. He kicked the back of the couch. “No, fuck. I don’t mean that. Fuck, I wanted this to go _well_ ,” he said, and kicked the couch again. He rubbed his wrist under his nose, and Steve thought he was crying, or maybe trying not to. “I just – I wanted to speed things up, or I was gonna cry, and you weren’t going to have sex with me if I was crying – ”

“Well, _no_ ,” said Steve, and hoped he didn’t sound as appalled as he felt. 

He probably did, though, because Bucky exploded. “I’ve been waiting three fucking months for you to get your shit together for this! I wasn’t going to blow it at the last minute just because I cry about stupid things.” 

“Hey,” said Steve. “Bucky. If something upsets you, that’s not – ”

“It _didn’t_ upset me,” Bucky interrupted. “I wasn’t upset.”

“Okay.”

“I wasn’t!” Bucky yelled. “I felt – oh, goddamnit,” he said, and some of the fight seemed to go out of him. He slumped against the back of the couch. 

“How’d you feel?” Steve asked.

Bucky rubbed his face. “I dunno,” he said, and his head dropped forward, hair falling in his face. “I always used to tell Dr. Charles that,” he told Steve. “One time he brought in this shitty little feelings list, and I got all offended. Like he thought I didn’t know what _sadness_ meant, you know? And he said he knew I knew all the words. The list was just to get the ball rolling. Make it easier to talk about this shit. And I was trying, and I couldn’t – ” He brushed his hair out of his face. It fell right back in front of his eyes. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t make me sound like a fucking idiot. I knew what the fucking words meant, but I couldn’t describe feeling them.” 

“I think you think you sound stupid much more often than anyone else thinks that, Buck.”

Bucky’s face twisted up. He hid it behind his hand. “I wanna turn off the lights.”

“Go for it.” 

The cabin was quite dark without the Christmas lights. Bucky felt his way across the room to sit next to Steve, but even though he was close enough for Steve to feel him there, Steve could barely see his face. 

“I thought you were the one who changed,” Bucky said. 

“Hmm?” 

Bucky lifted his hand, moving it as if he were trying to drag what he wanted to say next out of the air. “When I was on the run,” he said, “after the helicarriers.” He paused, his mouth dragging down. “People are fucking terrible to the homeless. The police don’t like you, decent people won’t look at you, and the other homeless people aren’t happy to have a new guy on their turf. And criminals see an easy mark, which is useful, actually, ‘cause they’re not gonna make a trail by raising a stink about it with the police when you take their cash.” 

He stopped for a long time. Steve’s eyes were adjusting; he couldn’t pick out any details, but he could see Bucky’s silhouette, the slump of his head. “That sounds hard,” Steve said.

Bucky started a little, as if he’d been somewhere else in his mind. “I guess. Sometimes.” A glance at Steve. The moonlight caught on the whites of his eyes. “But I had this vision, you know, what things would be like if I went back to you. Like Brooklyn again. Baseball on the radio, late nights on the fire escape – I mean, I knew people don’t sit on fire escapes much anymore, I wasn’t _stupid_. But you know how we always used to sit on the fire escape, just shooting the shit?”

“Yeah.” Steve had clung to those same memories that long hot summer he spent looking for Bucky. Sitting on the fire escape, picking out the few stars they could see through the city lights, talking about nothing. Just happy, just because they were together. 

“I was so fucking hungry,” Bucky said. “It’s fucking impossible to feed a supersoldier metabolism when you’re on the run. I’d make up these great big imaginary feasts for us.” He cracked a smile. “I got that one right, anyway. But the rest of it didn’t work out. I thought we’d be together again and everything would be better, and then it wasn’t. And I guess I thought, if I could make you give just a little more, then things would finally snap into place. Then everything would be fine. So I just kept demanding more from you, and it still wasn’t fine, so I blamed you. I didn’t think I’d changed that much, so it had to be you.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Bucky said, annoyed. “It wasn’t your fault. You tried really fucking hard, Steve. I was just…” He rubbed his face. “…really sad.” 

“I’m sorry you were in pain,” Steve clarified. “I know it wasn’t my fault.” But his eyes stung with tears, too many to blink away. He had to wipe his eyes. “Sorry,” Steve mumbled. “I just – thank you. For telling me that.” 

Bucky tilted his head back against the sofa. His eyes shone in the moonlight, like he was close to tears too. Steve reached for him, and Bucky thrust up his hand to fend Steve off. “Don’t,” Bucky said. “You always make me cry, Jesus. That’s why I had to get away from you earlier. I was gonna cry, and then you wouldn’t touch me anymore, and there wasn’t even a reason for it, just – fuck, this is so fucking stupid – just that it felt nice, your hands on my back – ” He smacked his palm sharply against the floor. “Who loses control because something feels too nice?”

“Bucky,” said Steve. “I hate to break this to you. But that’s pretty much the point of having sex.”

Bucky scowled at him. Steve started to laugh, and Bucky’s scowl deepened. 

“Come on, Bucky, you made me _squeak_ ,” Steve said, and squeaked at him in demonstration. Bucky laughed too, startled, and Steve squeaked again; and let out a series of chipmunk-like cheeps until Bucky’s laughter made him laugh too, and he was laughing too hard to do anything but gasp for breath. 

Steve almost had himself under control when Bucky caught his breath and let out a return squeak of his own, and Steve dissolved into laughter again. “Stop, stop,” Steve gasped, clutching his stomach. Bucky gave another squeak, and Steve grabbed a pillow off the couch and pummeled him with it. Bucky grabbed a pillow of his own, fending off Steve’s blows, then dove forward, pushing Steve to the floor, pinning him down and trying to grab the pillow out of his had. 

Steve let him eventually. Bucky tossed it away and collapsed half on top of Steve, his head on Steve’s stomach. “Sorry for ruining the night,” Bucky said. 

“You didn’t ruin the night, Bucky, Jesus,” Steve said. “I finally got to kiss you. You’re gonna have to work a lot harder to ruin that.” He pressed his palms against the floor, sliding out from under Bucky to pull himself to sit. Bucky rolled over onto his back. The moonlight lit his face: the cleft in his chin, the sharpness of his cheekbones, his lowered eyelashes dark against his pale skin.

“Besides,” added Steve, “there’s a lot of night left.” 

Bucky’s eyelashes lifted. He was looking up at Steve, smiling; and suddenly, lightning-quick, he rolled so he was kneeling, scooting forward to straddle Steve’s hips. He nearly fell against him, laughing anxiously, catching himself with his arm against Steve’s chest. “Yeah?” Bucky said. 

Steve put his arm around Bucky’s waist, holding him. “Yeah,” he said. He could feel Bucky’s heart pounding, they were so close, and it made his own heart speed up. Bucky smoothed his hand against Steve’s chest, running his fingertips along the line of Steve’s collarbone through his shirt. 

“I wanna kiss you,” Bucky said, ducking his head, and Steve got a mouthful of Bucky’s hair when he replied, “Please.” 

Bucky pecked a kiss on the corner of Steve’s mouth. Then he moved forward, slow and careful, and fit his mouth over Steve’s, sucking Steve’s lower lip.

They kissed a long while, slow and sweet. Bucky’s hand slid along Steve’s chest, following the front seam of Steve’s shirt, stroking over his breast through his thin shirt.

It was driving Steve nuts. “Jesus,” Steve gasped. “Just – let me – ”

Steve stripped off his shirt. He wanted to do it slow, show himself off; but his fingers were clumsy on the buttons, it wasn’t graceful at all, and his face flushed painfully. “Fuck,” he muttered, and the last two buttons seemed to take an eternity, and he was blushing all the way down his chest. 

“Need a little help, soldier?” Bucky crooned, and Steve gave him a little shove. 

“Maybe I’ll just leave it on, huh, you want that?” Steve asked, laughing a little as he said it. The last button popped through the buttonhole, and the fabric bound at his shoulders a moment while he stripped the shirt off, and then he was free, and tossed the shirt away from him on the futon. 

Bucky touched his fingertips to one of Steve’s nipples, light, like Peggy had right after Steve first got the serum; and Steve did what he had wished he could have done then, and put his hand on the fingers to hold them there. Bucky rubbed a fingertip gently over his nipple. Steve’s stomach melted. 

Bucky pressed the flat of his hand over Steve’s breast. He had his lower lip caught between his teeth, his whole attention focused on Steve: like Steve was the center of the universe and Bucky wanted to take him apart to figure out what made him tick. He slid his hand over Steve’s chest, down over his stomach, massaging his navel. 

“Jesus,” Steve whispered again, helpless, and reached out for Bucky, hands on his waist, pulling him closer. Bucky slid his hand up Steve’s chest, back to his pecs, and Steve’s breath hitched, and they were kissing again, the sound sweet and quiet under the patter of the rain outside. 

Steve wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, with Bucky’s back off limits, at least for now. So he moved his hands downward instead, cupping Bucky’s hips, rubbing his hands along Bucky’s thighs. 

Bucky shivered and broke the kiss a moment, ducking his face into the curve of Steve’s neck. But before Steve could even say anything Bucky was back, kissing along Steve’s jaw – “You should shave next time,” Bucky murmured, and kissed along the line of his jaw, again and again and again, light and quick, not using his tongue anymore. 

Steve rolled his head, trying to catch Bucky’s lips. Bucky butted his nose against Steve’s jaw, nuzzling into Steve’s neck and kissing the soft skin below his ear. “No fair,” Steve said, and dug the heels of his hands into Bucky’s thighs, and Bucky startled, rising up on his knees off Steve’s lap, and Steve’s cock ached at the loss of pressure. 

“Hey,” Steve said softly. Bucky’s heart was pounding, and Steve moved his arms back to Bucky’s waist, and held him. “Hey,” he said again, and Bucky settled back down on his lap, and kissed him again; and when Steve moved his hands back to Bucky’s thighs, he rested them there a while, let Bucky get used to the touch, till Bucky’s kisses got a little sloppy and he was wriggling against Steve, demanding. 

Then Steve slid his hands back up, creasing Bucky’s shorts as he stroked along Bucky’s inner thighs. Bucky’s hips stuttered against him, grinding his cock against Steve’s. His hand was tight in Steve’s hair, pulling, probably unconsciously. Bucky made a little choked noise. 

Steve kissed him, sweet, and squeezed his thighs, massaging his fingers into the muscle. Bucky rocked against him, frustrated. Steve moved his right hand to feel Bucky’s cock through his pants. Bucky made that delicious choked noise again. 

“Want me to take care of that?” Steve murmured.

“If you want,” said Bucky, trying for careless. Steve gave him a squeeze, and Bucky thrust against him, gasping a little. His jaw hung slack; he wasn’t quite kissing anymore, but mouthing at Steve’s jaw, his neck. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, please, Steve, c’mon.” 

Buttons undone, zippers unzipped, flies pulled open, boxers pushed out of the way. Steve took them both in hand and jerked them off together. Bucky came first, hot against Steve’s stomach, and collapsed against Steve. 

Then he rolled off Steve to sit propped against the sofa beside him, head tilted back, eyes closed, panting. Steve’s cock throbbed as he looked at him, listened to that panting, smelled sex and sweat. His hand was no longer moving, but holding tight around the base of his own cock, tight enough that he could feel the vein throbbing against the pad of his thumb. 

Bucky opened his eyes and rolled his head over to look at Steve, smiling that cat-got-the-cream smile that drove Steve nuts. “Waiting for permission, Stevie?” he asked. “Need a hand?” 

“I, uh,” Steve said. Bucky reached out and wrapped his hand around the head of Steve’s cock. “I, oh, fuck,” Steve gasped, his hips jerking up off the floor. Bucky scooted a little closer, nuzzling his face in Steve’s bare shoulder. His wet lips trailed over Steve’s collarbone; then he bit down, his mouth at the juncture of Steve’s shoulder and neck, and Steve came.

Steve let himself slide down to lie on the cool floor. He felt hot and sticky and warm all through, his eyelids heavy. 

“You’re a mess,” Bucky said fondly. He stripped off his dirty t-shirt and rubbed the mess off Steve’s stomach and chest. Steve was too tired to arch into the touch, but he loved it, brisk and a little rough; and God, Bucky leaning over him like that, what a view. The moonlight caught on the ridges of his stomach, the points of his nipples, glittered on the metal socket of his arm. He wanted to reach up, to touch everything, but his whole body felt heavy and sleepy and he didn’t. 

Bucky balled up his dirty shirt and tossed it out of the way, arm muscles stretching something beautiful. He snatched Steve’s discarded shirt off the futon and pulled it on, fumbling a little in his haste. 

Steve moaned a little. When Bucky began to fiddle with the buttons, Steve put his hand on Bucky’s. “Leave it unbuttoned?” Steve asked, drowsy. “I wanna look at you.”

A smile bloomed on Bucky’s face. He tugged at the shirt a little, checking that it covered his shoulders; and then he lay down next to Steve, the unbuttoned shirt flopping open over his chest, and reached over to rub his knuckles gently over Steve’s cheek. “You look pretty good yourself,” Bucky said. 

Steve blushed all over. He rolled on his stomach to hide it, nuzzling his face into Bucky’s side, and Bucky cradled the back of Steve’s head in his hand. 

Steve draped an arm across Bucky. He did seem a little thinner, but it struck Steve then that he was thin only in comparison with his Winter Soldier fighting weight. His body had been like this when he fought with the Howling Commandos, or when he leaned shirtless over the engine of his parents’ car, smudged with motor oil and filthy beautiful in the summer sunlight. 

The thought heated Steve’s blood again. He pressed a kiss against Bucky’s chest, just below his breast, tasting his sweat. Bucky shifted beneath him, a little hitch in his breath, and Steve wanted to keep going: lick his way along Bucky’s ribs, nuzzle his face in Bucky’s stomach, take Bucky’s soft cock in his mouth and suck him hard and needy again. They were both supersoldiers. They could probably go all night. 

But Bucky was still moving, restless, and Steve thought he’d better not push his luck. It had gone well; with a few hiccups, but still, it had gone well, and it would be better to leave it at that than risk pushing too far and too fast and maybe spoil it. 

So Steve lay quiet instead, letting the cool breeze through the window blow over his bare skin. Bucky quieted down too, and drifted off: half asleep already. The leaves rustled under the patter of the rain, and he could even hear the waves, just a little, and the heat in Steve’s blood died away.

Without that distraction, he became suddenly aware just how hard the floor was. He would be sorry in the morning if they slept here. 

Steve got Bucky a little shake. “We should go to bed,” Steve murmured.

“Noooo.” Bucky tightened his grip. 

Steve lifted his head, wriggling upward till he could kiss Bucky’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll let you steal all the covers.”

Bucky’s grip relaxed. “Oh,” he said, a note of surprise in his voice, and Steve realized Bucky must have thought Steve still meant to sleep on the couch. “Okay.” He was sitting up now, taking Steve’s hand in his, pulling him to his feet. “The bed’s king size.”

“Of course it is. I doubt Tony knows there’s any other kind.”

Despite the size of the bed, Bucky snuggled close to Steve, head against Steve’s chest. Steve looped his arms loosely around him, one hand on the small of his back and the other between his shoulder blades. Bucky’s breath softened, warm against Steve’s bare skin, and his back rose and fell gently as he slept. 

Steve didn’t go to sleep nearly as quickly. He almost didn’t want to: wanted the soft night to stretch out like taffy, so he could spend a long time drifting between the sound of the sea and the feel of Bucky’s heartbeat against his chest. But eventually it all lulled him to sleep. 

***

When Steve woke the next morning, the sun streamed through the windows, dyeing the tangled white sheets a soft yellow. He sat up, stretched, blinked at the gauzy canopy draped around the big empty bed, and wondered where the hell he was. 

A toaster popped. He remembered then: he was in Bucky’s seaside cabin, and they had sex the night before, on the living room floor, and Steve felt himself blushing, embarrassed and pleased with himself and a little light-headed. The toast smelled really good. 

Bucky sat on one of the barstools at the kitchen island, still dressed in yesterday’s cargo shorts and Steve’s crumpled shirt, buttoned now. A piece of marmalade-spread toast hung out of his mouth. The stained glass squares around the windows cast oblongs of color on the pale hardwood floor and the white walls. Bucky waved his jammy knife at Steve in greeting.

Steve grinned at him, feeling his face go all goofy and besotted. He was halfway across the kitchen before he realized he’d moved, and then he stopped, leaning on the far end of the kitchen island. “Last night was great,” he said, a little bashful.

Bucky snorted, not unkindly, and tore the piece of the toast hanging from his mouth in half to give Steve the unbitten portion. 

“Okay, fine, there’s some room for improvement,” Steve conceded, and ate the toast. The marmalade was like sunshine on his tongue. “That’s okay. Practice makes perfect, right?” 

Bucky swallowed his toast. “C’mere,” he said. He tossed the knife on the counter, leaving a streak of marmalade on the seashell mosaic, and stretched out his arm toward Steve. 

Steve came the rest of the way to him, leaning against the back of his chair. He kissed the top of Bucky’s head. 

Two more slices of toast popped. “Marmalade or Nutella?” Bucky asked, and spread Nutella on a slice without waiting for an answer. 

Steve ate it, still leaning against the back of Bucky’s chair, and brushed some toast crumbs from Bucky’s hair. He drank the glass of orange juice Bucky poured him. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been living on toast all this time,” Steve said. 

“I’ve been packing food to go to the VA,” Bucky told him, with dignity. “You wanna catch a Hydra recruiter’s attention, you’ve gotta look like you’ve got nowhere better to be.” 

Steve kissed the top of his head again. “You got anywhere to be this morning?”

Bucky leaned back against Steve, twisting his head so his cheek rested against Steve’s bare chest. His stubble prickled. “Not till noon,” Bucky said, his cheek hot against Steve’s skin, and he tilted his head to smile up at Steve. “Not for hours.

“Good,” said Steve. He undid the top button on Bucky’s shirt and bent down to kiss Bucky’s collarbone. “Plenty of time to try out that bed.”


End file.
